What's happening in the land of Ris?

 So it's been a while... I got more weary after my last post and have been vegetating a bit. However, things are also kinda busy in my world so I thought I'd give a general babble about what's happening in terms of hobbies and what's not.

TTRPGs

There's been a number of developments in terms of what I'm up to with regards to TTRPGs. 

• My longest running homebrew D&D game with the South Africans have come to a bit of a halt. We completed 59 sessions from 2021 until now and, while we've had some breaks, they haven't been sufficient. People are fatigued and I decided that it would be better to put the game on indefinite hiatus. This also gives me the opportunity to rest more (see below on what I'm up to to why this statement is funny).

• My homebrew game with the North Americans is going on session 18. What I find interesting is that I'm the one who wants to move the current thread along and they're like "no, we want to use the next session to talk about things that has happened so far". Which is awesome. I am not complaining.
  
  
• I'm planning on running two different oneshots at our local gaming convention in October - one for the Fantasy AGE system and the other for Tales of the Valiant. I have the "stories" basically formulating in my mind and spent a huge amount of time on creating character sheets... and I'm not done yet. I'm also practicing the oneshots on my friends and will be running the ToV one in May. Should be fun.
  
  A bit more on the idea we have. A group of us are essentially going to have two tables running games on both days of the convention. The games will only be two-and-a-half hours in length - thirty minutes to familiarise players with the system and each other and then two hours on the actual playing. We're going to be showing off games like Fantasy AGE, Tales of the Valiant, Daggerheart, Realms of Pugmire, and others. 
  
  
  
  
  
• I'm also running two games with the same group of people on Saturdays. We're playing a Phandelver and Below D&D campaign, but on days when not everyone can come, we mess around with Fantasy AGE trying to familiarise ourselves with it.

Computer Gaming

• I'm slowly, very very slowly, playing Mass Effect again. And by slowly, I mean 'I have gotten to the Citadel for the first time and haven't touched the game in like a week afterwards' kind of slowly. I constantly try not to be sucked in by how amazing the game was build and the world constructed. I try to remind myself how hurt I was and how painful the end is going to be. And then I see a cutscene and it's like "Oooohhh..... prettty!" I be dumbass, yes.
  
  
• I'm also losing time in Stranded: Alien Dawn which has recently been acquired by Paradox Interactive... it doesn't immediately bother me but I have to wonder how many million DLCs they'd be able to get out of a game like that. 
  
  
• Aska is also a game I play quite regularly. I know there's a lot of micromanaging that you need to do, but it's relaxing. It's got all the makings of a settlement builder and survival game all meshed up into one. It ticks all the boxes in my mind as something that I want to play without thinking too hard.
  
  
• And then finally there's Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries. A game I shouldn't enjoy because I don't know anything about the stats and guns and whatnots. But somehow, even though I am terrible at the game, I find myself enjoying what I can do. I've had to restart several times in the campaign because I inevitably run out of money and working mechs, but it's still fun. I get the same enjoyment out of it that I got from Battletech and I miss just as badly. haha.

Writing

I've picked up writing again, albeit very very VERY slowly. I have a Mass Effect fanfic that I'm posting for the first time which actually came into existence over a decade ago. For any of you who followed Shattered Reality on FanFiction.com, the story I'm posting now is the one that inspired and is referred to in that one. You can read both without being spoiled by the other, so if you are interested in Mass Effect fanfics the Shattered Reality story was finished and is beefy. 

TV / Streaming

I don't really watch any shows all that much. I've never been big at watching series unless it's something that really catches my attention. I'm happy to see that The Last of Us is back with a second season. Having played the games and enjoying the story, I'm happy to see how they translate that into a different medium. I was a little worried that Bella Ramsey wasn't going to seem older in the second season, but so far I'm on board. 

Board Games / Card Games

I'm still playing Arkham Horror at least twice a month. We've worked through a number of campaigns and it's been a lot of fun. I've been asked to teach others how to play the game at a board-gaming event. So naturally I decided to pull my friends in because I am not keen on doing stuff like that alone, haha. That's happening on Sunday this weekend. (If you are in the area and interested, send me a message and I'll give you details or link you up with people that have the details).

In Conclusion...

So I'm not inactive. If anything, I'm quite busy and keep myself at that level a bit too much. That said, I'm enjoying myself thoroughly, so I can't complain about things that help my mental health and give me joy. 

Outside of the hobby world, things are a bit rough. At least I have things I can take shelter in.

Mini-babble: Cartograph Atlas Edition

So remember when I said December was an emotional trainsmash? Well, it would seem that January didn't like that and tried to one up it.

WTF, January?!

So as per usual, I sought escape from the insanity that I find myself in. And I found a new solo TTRPG to babble about! Introducing: Cartograph Atlas Edition.

So to play this game you need a number of six-sided dice that are going to represent one of three types of things so you need to try and have them be at least three colours. These are going to represent landmark dice, biome dice, and temporary dice. Along with that, you're going to need a piece of paper, a pencil, an eraser, a pack of playing cards, and a notebook to journal in.

The idea behind this game is that you take on the persona of a cartographer (selected from lists or rolled randomly) who arrives at an area populated by other people and you've been tasked to draw a map and chart what you find. You have different phases of play - one of which has you roll dice onto the paper to see what biomes and landmarks you find. You also have a phase that involves writing responses to prompts about the different areas you've travelled to.

Now obviously, you can play fast and loose with this idea. For example, I played a little following the rules and phases and then I realised that I'm just too brain tired to actually write anything, so I ended up just creating a map with the dice rolling (which is was quite fun). The book also gives you ways to modify play from the default fantasy roll, draw, and write.

One can buy Cartograph Atlas Edition pdf from Itchio for $12 USD. Or you can purchase it and over 100 other solo ttrpgs for $10 USD on Itchio by getting the Solo But Not Alone 5 bundle. I will probably babble about some of the solo TTRPGS in other posts as I explore them. The bundle is available for the next three months.

Babble about things and then eventually LegendKeeper

 There are a number of things I collect randomly. I have purchased an insane number of TTRPG pdfs off of sites like DriveThruRPG. I love stationery so places like The Papery are a massive problem. I have an enormous number of PC games on my Steam account but only play a few of them for longer than an hour or two.

And then, in a weird mesh of online stationery, I love trying programmes and websites having to do with writing. I have Scrivener; I was a big fan of Liquid Story Binder (but they're no longer updating it 😕); Microsoft OneNote remains a big favourite; Obsidian is golden for idea crafting and linking; and so on...

This means that I have an overabundance of programmes and places where my homebrew world resides. And I know that this kind of window-shopping for programmes is basically procrastination from actually working on writing, but I have also just been trying to find the one that works the easiest and the best.

World Anvil is a strong contender for working the best, but I can't call it the easiest website to learn. It is incredibly robust and the things you can do there are simply phenomenal. But you need to have an understanding of the programme you're working with. You need to think about things in a particular way, otherwise you won't have a clue what you're doing.

And then came Anto from Icarus Games and he started sharing about his campaign which he writes up in LegendKeeper - a worldbuilding site that does all the things I need it to do (and more) without overwhelming me with everything it can do.

I tried it out for the 14-day trial period and I was still a bit skeptical but growing more convinced that this both covers working the easiest and covering all the bases I need covered. So, when my brother asked what I'd like for a Christmas present, I asked that he'd help me get a year subscription. The site keeps your projects if you no longer subscribe and enables you to export it. So the work wouldn't just hang there inaccessible if you don't pay... but, after a week of working on this programme, I have to say I think this is going be one of those sites (like Inkarnate and Roll20) that is going to become a permanent thing.

So let's (finally) talk about LegendKeeper...

As mentioned above, it is a worldbuilding website. What that means is that it allows you to write and compile a series of articles (with or without the help of templates), and link them to each other and whatever maps you have loaded up. There are some standard templates available to help prompt you, should you need that (user-created templates are also available on their Discord). All of this enables you to set up a wiki as detailed or sparse as you'd like it to be. You can also select certain pages, tabs, or paragraphs to be hidden and kept secret from those who you share the project with.

Which leads me to the first 'nit pick' of LegendKeeper in its current state.

LegendKeeper is currently in Open Beta. Which means that there are a multitude of features available, but it is still a work in progress. If I understand it correctly, there are two ways to share the project. One is by a link which means they won't need an account and can see all the things you didn't hide in the project. This would generally be great for just sharing with your players so they have a wiki-like view of things. The second is by actually given them access to a role. This enables them to collaborate and not just view. Currently there are only two roles: admin (sees everything including secrets), and member (sees only what you've made available, can edit if you allow it).

There's currently no fiddling with what each collaborator can do. You have an all-or-nothing approach which doesn't work as well if you have multiple groups running the game - as they'd need varying access to information. If I read it correctly, it is the developer's intention to diversify roles a bit and add them almost like Discord does. So this isn't a deal-breaker or anything. It's probably the one problem I have with it amongst a lot of good.

I'm not halfway through doing what I need to do to upload all my scattered notes onto LegendKeeper, but I'm happy so far with what I have there. And I'm happy with how simple it is and impressed by how complex you can make it. The pricing for everything you're getting is also reasonable. 

So all in all I'd say I'm very happy with LegendKeeper. Let's give it a year and see what I make of it when I need to resubscribe. 

Homebrew update

I took a couple of months this year to break from my homebrew, but I'm happy to report I'm back in the saddle and have been having a great time with both my South African and North American groups.

So what has been happening. Well the [redacted] that I've been working for years has finally been [redacted]!! That's amazing, right?

😉

Version 1 - back in 2021

No, but to be more serious, a lot of good things are finally falling into place. For my North American group, they've finally moved out of the starter settlement and are learning an overabundance of things. I was a little worried that they would go in a different direction than I had hoped, but after teeter-tottering between three locations, they settled on the "right" one. This is the ultimate challenge of having an overarching "story" in something of a sandbox. I want the players to go where they want to go with their characters but need to make sure there's something for them in the direction they decided on.

I'm also (super) excited to see what they do with the area they've gone to. Some great story beats can be found there including a cameo of my mother's very first D&D character... but it can also be completely missed. That's the thing about player agency: it's up to them to find the threads you hope they'll find. I know there's also the whole 'give them a choice and then just make that choice the right one' as a strategy but I haven't really the experience and insight on how to do that with my game. So yeah. So far it's going very good. We're meeting next week for session 10 which is a bit of a milestone in my mind, though I don't exactly know why that's the case.

--.--

Current version - still a work-in-progress

My South African players have had 53 sessions and I've just dropped a lore bomb on them. They're focused and ready to go find out information. My attempts at intrigue was a little iffy, but then again, it was my first attempt at it so I'm happy that at this redirection. The thing I've also learned about intrigue is that it is more likely to split the party. Which I don't mind, but you almost want solo sessions then versus sitting for three hours and spotlighting each player as they do things the other's characters know nothing about.

The break did me some good in solidifying my ideas and being able to present something coherent with all the threads I had been having them pick up on for three years. I'm happy to have used Obsidian to put those thoughts together. It has been super useful.

--.--

I'm hoping to move my GM "world book" over to a single place. I had initially tried World Anvil but my brain didn't want to work with the setup. I tried it twice actually and feel like I failed horribly both times. A number of people I know recommend it and I would too, if that's how your mind processes information. I found it a bit overwhelming.

The site I'm keen on trying next is LegendKeeper. I don't think it's necessarily better than any of the other sites and programmes I've tried, but I'm hoping that it will just "gel" with me better. The membership fee isn't too bad. I'm going to try it out for a year and see how it works. Might blog about it in here.

Nanowrimo, AI, and digging yourself into a hole you can't crawl out of...

 It's been a while since I posted. I've been busy, but I'm still alive and doing well. So if you were wondering, wonder no more! 

It's no secret that I used to be a big fan of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which was, initially at least, a movement to get a person writing creatively for no other gain than to create. The idea was simple: Start the beginning of the month of November with a 'blank page' and write until the end of the month with a target of 50 000 words. It was crazy, zany but, importantly, it was 100% achievable.

I've been doing nanowrimo for over a decade and was successful a couple of times. Followers of this blog would know that I'd pitch the nanowrimo idea once a year (during the years I participated) by writing a post about it and its benefits while trying to make the daily word count of 1667 and I mostly succeeded doing just that.

Nanowrimo has done a lot of good. It has made strangers friends and sometimes even marriage partners. It has helped people write up their thesis, it has launched authors into the sphere of having content that they might one day publish (even though this was never the ultimate goal of the movement). In my own life, nanowrimo was how I got into D&D, how I met people who've made deep impacts on me, and helped teach me that I could if I put my mind and heart to it.

So it wasn't willy-nilly that I decided to delete my nanowrimo account a couple of days ago. It was with a heaviness I haven't felt in a long time.

What spurred it?

Nanowrimo recently release a statement (which they've now heavily edited) stating their stance on AI. I managed to find a copy of the 'first post' before they edited it and edited it again. I'm posting it as a picture, but for those who can't access images, it basically states that those who are unsupportive of using AI in writing are classist and ableist.

This broad-strokes acceptance of the use of AI in an activity that was meant to encourage human creativity in writing, and the statement that opposition to their acceptance was classist, ableist, and privileged, really rubbed me the wrong way. Let me be clear, the issue isn't using things like Grammarly to fix what has been written, but rather generative AI that generates the writing without enough creative input to call it the work of the data entrier. 

The other matter that ground my gears was the emphasis on publication. The original idea that Chris Baty came up with wasn't "let's get 21 people to publish or otherwise be considered failures". Creative expression, like any other hobby, can bring growth by doing without hitting professional or published spheres.

A tangent...

In writing this blog post, I got interrupted by a five-year-old who wanted my attention (not mine, I'm still allergic). We took out some Rory's Story cubes and crafted a story together using the pictures on the cubes as prompts. While it did throw me off of my thought of how I wanted to conclude the post, it did remind me of the magic of creativity and the joy that can come with it - even when it's only a single moment that will not be made permanent by publication or whatnot.

Nanowrimo has effectively killed that joy for me in my support for them. They've told me my disagreement makes me inferior and icky. And the knowledge that they're following the money of an AI-related sponsor over the original vision that made nanowrimo the highlight of my year is frustrating and heart-breaking.

Conclusion

I won't stop writing because of NaNoWriMo's actions, but it will no longer be the reason I do decide to write. And nothing they say now will bring me back to them. Because even in their final edited post which takes away the hurtful remarks, this wasn't done out of actual remorse or realisation that they were wrong. It has been to save face.

And what a unwashed, grubby face that is.

 

Ironsworn Starforged: Yet another tale of loss, horrible dice rolls and death!

 

My tale begins in August 2023, when I received the printed copies of Ironsworn Starforged from my brother. We went to Plettenberg Bay for a couple of days and I started immediately to play the game.

Those who know Ironsworn games would know by playing I kinda mean prepping. But as Shawn Tomkin says "Prep is play". It took me a couple of hours to write out the 'Truths' of the galaxy I was going to have my character run around in and came up with a fairly interesting idea. The people had fled their former galaxy because of an AI war that broke out. But later in the truths it came out that AI were still something that some people had. So I imagined that the Ironsworn I was going to play would have strong feeling about AI and the cultivation of AI in the galaxy they were in now. She would probably do her level best to destroy any AI she could find.

There were a couple of other things I thought would be rather interesting to try out. I've always played close-combat, bashy-bashy characters, but in this world which takes inspirations from Battlestar Galactica and Firefly, there is a more gunslinger type feel. so I decided to make her a gunslinger and also an explorer - someone curious about this galaxy that they were still trying to figure out three-hundred years after arrival.

Because this game allows for improvements of assets (but not of stats), I sorta noted down some other things that she'd be interested in doing or things that could happen to her. Of course, the quest to destroy AI would be on the top of the list. She had lost her family, maybe finding a relative would be a nice thing to have her stumble over. 

I began my 'actual play' in December when work had calmed down to a crawl and life had decided to stop kicking me in the teeth. It was very slow going.

My character's first mission was to retrieve a data drive from a bandit camp. This drive would contain information on the transportation of an AI by ship to somewhere to be determined. I wanted to be cautious and play it safe, to not kill off my character in the first thing she tries to do. So I didn't make the firefights that ensued too difficult. She did get hit and such, but she didn't die and she got the drive and took it to the person who had initially wanted it. Their relationship was complicated. This helper wanted to sell the information on the drive, but kept her word and allowed my character to access the info first, not knowing that the latter's intention was to destroy the AI.

From the drive, they learnt that the AI was on it's way to Rhiannon and so the race from Argosy to Rhiannon began.

My character had a choice. She could either fly through the known routes to Welkin via Elysium and then cut to the unknown Rhiannon or go straight into the unknown. Being a bit of a hard ass and, seeing that I had gained confidence over the matter, the decision was made to go straight for Rhiannon. It would be a formidable journey that could lead to multiple discoveries.

It would also be a journey she'd never finish.

Along the way, she would encounter a pirate ship. This would be my first attempt at fighting in ship-to-ship combat. I again decided to play it safe and choose an 'easy' opponent. 

I Entered the Fray and the trouble immediately started.

*rolls the dice* 

Miss.

This meant that the opponent had the upper hand and I would be reacting to them rather than fighting from a position of strength. My character would not dodge immediately, exchanging fire with the other ship.

Clash.

*rolls the dice*

Miss.

The miss meant that my character's ship had taken damage, but that was okay. One of the assets I had selected in the beginning of the game was a reinforced hull. So that meant that these rolls wouldn't be too difficult to do well in.

Withstand Damage.

*rolls the dice*

Miss.

...

By this point I was getting annoyed with my dice. But I'm not superstitious. I wasn't about to haul out another set of dice to try and break the curse that was befalling these ones. Besides, it was loadshedding and I was already playing by battery-powered lamplight. Trying to find it in the dark would not have been so easy.

This time I would try to dodge though.

React under Fire.

*rolls the dice*

Miss.

The ship bobs and weaves and still gets singed by the pirate. Damage is dealt and again I take heart in the fact that I have that reinforced hull.

Withstand Damage.

*rolls the dice*

Miss.

I almost head-desked at this point. My character's ship integrity was now zero, it was battered to bits and anything harder than a sneeze would make it fall apart completely. She'd be desperate now. Desperate to score a hit on this pirate and destroy it outright.

Clash.

*rolls the dice*

Strong Hit.

It was a feeling of elation that is matched only by having spent four hours in the dark and having the power finally come on. A strong hit meant that I didn't just mark one damage to the track of this pirate, but two. And because it was an 'easy' opponent, that would mean that I could finish off this combat with one last hit - even a weak hit would do.

Take Decisive Action.

*rolls dice*

Miss with Match.

I considered how to save my character. She had failed utterly and her ship was about to be blown to bits. She could probably escape, get captured, try to escape that... I just didn't know if I wanted her to be a captive to a pirate. So I decided that the dice would decide for me. If I got a strong hit, she'd be fine and captive. If I got a weak hit... she'd die but would have one last act. And if I missed, then she'd just be dead. A fart in the wind.

Face Death

*rolls dice*

Weak Hit.

So she died. But maybe what she had done, the cylinder she had shot into the void would find a curious scavenger who'd take up her cause. Or who'd write a book about her. Or something.

As for me, I'm already thinking of how to start prepping for the next character. I still kind of want to use the same Truths. Maybe I'll change the locations and have the character be from a different sector - different planets, routes, dreams, and plans. We'll see.

As inglorious as this death was, it had kept me occupied for several months and I had fun with that.

Might consider new dice though...

Writing babble: It all starts with a little... and then it gets out of hand.

I didn't do any resolutions this year or anything. Maybe one: work on avoiding burnout by not committing myself to running a lot of D&D games. 

But in the absence of resolutions, I did commit to a writing project. Very small, very simple: Every week, I get given a prompt from a writing book and then I write about it. So far the longest I've spent on a prompt is forty-five minutes. So it's really not a big thing and it's challenging and fun.

If I manage to avoid the burn, I was thinking that I might do nanowrimo this year. And so comes the problem I always have: what to write about.

This question was quickly answered by a friend. I got excited, and inspired, and started making notes. I could already imagine the endless planning notes I would make in the months leading up to November. I would have a blast doing it. I was excited.

And then it all went to pot.

Why? Well... because the story didn't want to wait until November. It wanted to be written as soon as possible. And so instead of my usual fun and games with notes and highlighters and post-its, I now have Scrivener open and a thousand words in less than an hour.

Damnit. 😆

Babble: D&D and a reflection on the year without (too much) burnout

 In October, I wrote a blog post about my tracking of hours I spend preparing for DM-ing D&D. I'd like to share the final tally in this post and babble a bit about 2023.

In many ways, 2023 was a shit show. So many things went wrong in life at and away from the D&D table. But there has been some highlights too: The successful conclusion of my longest-running Dragon Heist campaign, 43 sessions in my South African TNO campaign, and the fact that I may have skirted burnout but didn't actually hit it.

I think what helped was that I was more cognisant of the time I'm actually spending preparing, playing and running games. I logged as much as I thought was sensible, so not everything, but mostly everything. It showed me when I naturally slumped and shouldn't be hard on myself for not doing more. It showed me the times I have energy and made me excited to capitalise on it.

So while the year was awful, my experiment in being mindful about how much time I'm dedicating to this game I like was a success.

Of 142 hours spent prepping/working on D&D-related things, I spent a total of 123 hours prepping my homebrew in 2023. Adding my time DM-ing to that 142 and I spent 228 hours prepping and running D&D games. This is not all the time I've spent on the game - I've played in other people's games too (and yes, I logged that as well) - but this is the time where I was basically being creative. It tallies up to about 10 full days, though I don't find that final stat particularly interesting.

The Homebrew that keeps Growing...

The year was 2016. 

I had only been playing D&D for about two, maybe three years at this point and something interesting occurred.

I. Had. An. IDEA!!!

It was very vague still. There were going to be these heroes who have lived long lives and then died. Then they're going to come back while only slowly regaining their memories and it's going to be a big, great thing. I had only two settlements in mind, no pantheon, no map and it all was... not quite glued together. 

It's from this half-assed campaign that I attempted an email story game. It didn't last long but it began solidifying the things in my mind. And then it faltered in the same year... turns out time zones suck. Plus I had never run a play-by-post game and never been in one and it probably sucked. haha 😉

As the years moved on, the idea grew and reformed. Why take away their memories when you have that backstory to mine from? Why not have a character in a level 1 body with a level 15 mindset? 

I started running Dragon Heist online and the idea kept percolating in the back of my mind.

And then I started playing on Inkarnate and Roll20 and the Cartographer's Guild icons on there and a half-assed map was born.

The early version map of Rheas (2021)

I started documenting the progress here on this blog and yeah... it's spiralled and grown into one helluva ride. I feel my map making skills have improved and the story also began shifting into something more concrete. I attempted a couple of game runs (going on four so far, with only two surviving) and throughout, the lore kept accumulating and I haven't scratched the surface of this world that I'm creating. 

A portion of Rheas (2023)

And now, as the year 2023 too quickly draws to a close, I've hit the milestone of 40 sessions with the South Africans... I don't know how that happened. We've explored maybe 30% of the island/continent(?) of Ocruan. I'm both excited and daunted by the thought of churning out more content. I have it in my head somewhere, but getting it to spill onto paper is sometimes quite challenging. Maps are easier to make, I've found. 

Anyway, I felt to document it here. I am excited at my little homebrew that could. It keeps going despite setbacks and is growing into a rich experience that I am enjoying thoroughly.

To nanowrimo or not to nanowrimo?

 So, if you've been following this blog for the past couple of years, you'd know that I frequently participated in a funny "little" exercise called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). To make a long story short, the exercise is to write a story of 50 000 words in a month - specifically the month of November.

I last participated (and floundered spectacularly) in 2021 when burnout hit me so hard I would have been seeing stars if I wasn't so exhausted at the time. Last year, I didn't even consider it because the burnout bug bit me again. This year....?

I don't know. 

Part of me wants to do it again. It always feels exciting and then grueling and then delightful when you succeed on whatever your target was - be it the 50k or whatever else. I feel like I have the energy this year that I didn't have in the past two years. My problem is that I don't exactly have a story in mind. 

See, my favourite activity is not the actual writing. It's the planning. And by planning, I mean PLANNING. White boards and markers, pictures and notebooks, the whole nine yards. I love when I have something that I can explore, prepare, consider, work on. I spend an unending amount of time on it.

But this year, unless the idea lightning bolt hits me in two months, I would be writing without a plan. Which means there's already a 50% likelihood of not making my target. I'm one of those "fail to plan, plan to fail" people who can't pants anything. (pants = flying by the seat of your pants)

I do have a couple of options for if I do pants this thing:

• Colostle: This is a solo-rpg game I've babbled about before that I was very impressed by. If I were to use this as a mechanism to generate content, I will be set for at least... 10 000 words? I think I would be challenged to do a lot of worldbuilding and it would definitely take the form of a journal with 'daily events'. It is a possibility. I think my hesitation with this is that there are so few hand holds in the game and it's so free-flowing, that it's almost too reliant on my own creativity: which makes it daunting. The rules are painfully simple though. It's not something I'm going to get stuck on. It will just be "Can I think up what to do in this situation and stretch it into as many words as possible?"

• Ironsworn Starforged: I haven't babbled about Starforged on here yet, but I have talked about Ironsworn here and here. In Starforged, I think there's a bigger possibility to generate more words than I would in Colostle, but it will have its own challenges. Starforged is a 'prep is play' type of game, where you spend hours worldbuilding and then the story can start. I've done a bit of it, my brother brought me the books when he came to visit, and I immediately jumped in and started playing. The challenge I have is the fact that I still need to come up with an inciting incident. In Colostle, that's supplied. Your character has a list of possible motivations to choose from. But Starforged is very much a blank canvas and I don't know if my ol' noggin will come up with something interesting to start off with. Once I do get started, it's going to be fun. There is a LOT more mechanics and rules to the game, but because of how much I've played Ironsworn, I'm not too bothered by that. The biggest challenge will be the dice rolls. My dice hate me. So I might end up with a dead character. Fortunately, once you've done the world building, it's easy to just generate a new one and tell a different story.

Yes, I'm definitely leaning more towards Starforged, I'll be honest. Maybe my next post should be about Starforged just so that people can know what it is I'm getting myself into.

Other possibilities:

• Fanfiction: I used to be very into fanfics. I know it's controversial because some authors are okay with it and others are absolutely appalled by the very notion that you would dare think of writing a story with someone else's world. I'm of the opinion that it's writing practice and, so long as you're not an asshole about it (trying to claim the author stole your ideas and whatnot), it can explore aspects and situations that might even be insightful. I tend to stick to game fanfiction though as opposed to book fanfiction. The lines feel a little less blurry. But what would I fanfic about is the question. I'm still too angry at Bioware to give Mass Effect a chance. (Yes, yes, I know, it's a game, I should get over it, but I think this grudge might stay with me until I stop breathing). If I do write fanfiction, it might be something like for XCOM or such... but I don't know. I don't know if I'm in the mood or have the capacity to come up with a decent idea. 

• D&D: I think I play too much D&D and spend too much time prepping my homebrew to actually write in it. I think this still classifies to some degree as fanfiction... But anyhoo, I don't know. Here I would have to have a decent plan of action and something I want to write. I've done D&D playthroughs as writeups for Nanowrimo before. It works, it's just not very interesting to me.

• Original fiction: The least likely thing to happen - me coming up with an original idea set in an original world (it would be either fantasy or scifi-ish) is not currently within the capacity of this writer. My big problem with original fiction is that I love world building and can come up with some things that would interest me, but the actual main story? Pffft.

Regardless of what I do, I don't think I'm going to go into the social aspect of Nanowrimo. It used to be a thing: meeting other participants, going to write ins, etc. Heck, that's how I met the person who would eventually get me into D&D. So I am not going to knock it and say it's stupid or something. I just think I don't want to use the full machine that is Nanowrimo and will rather go with the barebones that is the initial concept. 

If I do end up taking the plunge, I'll probably share some of my progress here... maybe. 

RPG Babble: Colostle

It's no secret that I'm a sucker for a good story. In the TTRPG realm, this seems to also translate into a compelling setting.

But the problem, I find, is that there are so many games to play, but so many problems in playing them. Getting people together, getting a date and a time sorted, getting prepped and ready to run. All of these things can become stumbling blocks when it comes to actually playing the game. It gets worse when it is a new game because then there's also the fact that everyone has to learn the game and might not be in the frame of mind to do so.

Which is where solo-gaming has become my escape. Like with computer games where I tend to gravitate to the single-player ones, TTRPGs/card/board games that can be run by my onesy gets attention. Then the only obstacle I have is me. Which, if I were honest, is still an obstacle, but less so than two or three other people with their individual hindrances.

So let me get back to my first statements: I'm a sucker for a good story and a compelling setting. I've only recently started dipping my toes into solo-RPGs, but I've found one that is simple, easy to play and pretty compelling.

The world of Colostle is a fantasy/medieval world set within a massive castle - each room filled with mountains, forests, even bodies of water like lakes, rivers and oceans. The Roomlands are filled with adventures, things to explore, places to navigate through and cities to visit. You play an adventurer in these lands who documents their adventures in a journal.

How does it work? 

You choose a class which determines your capabilities at exploration and combat. You're given a calling - an inciting incident or goal that you're striving towards - and you can decide on the personality of your character. 

Each day, or period of time, you draw a number of cards from a shuffled deck. This is the exploration phase and each card is something you encounter in that period. This can be a simple as finding something to hunt or gargoyles grabbing you and taking you to a different location. The cards also might show opportunities to combat creatures or Rooks (the only "creatures" who hold magic in the Roomlands that have the look of castle towers with arms and legs). Combat against Rooks are always avoidable, but then you lose out on what treasure or goodies the Rook might contain.

Having concluded the Exploration and Combat phase, you then take up your notebook and document the events of that cycle. This can be done by hand or electronically, in a notebook or pdf. How you do that is entirely up to you.

What I like about Colostle is that is inspires creativity. There's a lot of flexibility in the game by design. Things are open to interpretation and even if you were to pull the same or similar cards, it doesn't mean that the results are going to be the same. It's not a difficult game to learn and you can fall into it almost immediately with little setup required.

DM Babble: Session zero of my first homebrew. Oh boy.

So in D&D, session zero is where you reveal as much as you can / dare without spoiling the game to your players. It's where boundaries are set, questions are answered, and confidence is earned.

Unless you're me.

Usually, I'm okay with session zeros because I've been running Waterdeep Dragon Heist so many times that I'm not fussed or overwhelmed with fear. But recently I did a session zero for my homebrew campaign - the one I've been rambling about here for a couple of posts. And, I got to tell you, confidence was not earned (or shouldn't have been) as I uhmed, ahed, fidgeted, and paddled my way through a mostly disturbingly quiet session zero. I eventually revealed the world map to the group and continent they'll start in. Which could or could not be considered spoilery, but mostly was my attempt to show that 'Hey, look, I actually did do stuff for this campaign and I'm just having a stressful moment, k?'

I know why I'm freaking out though. 

Quite a few years ago, a misguided friend of mine decided that I should write a murder mystery party thinger and she'd host it. I spent three agonising months on it, pouring what little I knew and could into it. Come the night of the murder mystery dinner party and it flopped spectacularly. Some of the people at the party didn't know it was a home creation and tore it to pieces. I was... distressed for quite a few months afterwards and wasn't keen on sharing any of my creations to anyone (even the things I thought I had more confidence in).

So do I believe that my friends are going to trash my first ever homebrew? No. But I'm still afraid it's going to flop. I'm still worried that they're going to be too polite to suggest someone else run something that's more decent. Are these fears valid? Yes and no. A lot of it is just lack of confidence, I know that. But you know, with the exception of alcohol, I've yet to find confidence bottled and accessible to me at any particular point in time. Also, alcohol makes me sleepy, not confident. So there's that.

In my defense, though, the reason the session was mostly quiet was because I had written a primer to the campaign which I handed the players beforehand. So they were told everything I felt was needed prior to session zero so they could make a character at session zero. But I still worried about everything. Because I do that.

As my luck would have it, my Monday group is also going to be running this homebrew soon and I have another session zero to prepare for. I guess the good thing about this is that I get more practice in paddling like a duck.

Also, I'm a sucker for punishment.

DM Babble: Pantheon

I've begun creating a pantheon for my world. This might be a good idea or a bad idea, but it was a fun exercise, so I figure that all is not lost even if there are probably too many gods listed.

I watched a number of videos on Youtube and read some articles on the subject. One can really go pretty epic with gods and their histories and whatnot. Some good material to be found by watching Anto from Icarus Games.

Here's how I created mine: 

1. I listed a bunch of domains that these gods would reside over.
2. I wrote down names of gods and allocated them to the domains, preferably more than one domain at a time.
3. I decided to pay homage to some people/characters by making them gods. Because, of course Mercer would be the god of magic? How could he not?
4. Added a column for descriptions and interactions the gods have with each other and the world.
5. Had fun fun fun!

My list is by no means done, I still need to work out more of the inter-workings of the gods, but here are some of my favourites:

• Deduinne - god of Revelry and Strength, worshipped most often by Goliaths and Dwarves. Named after Grog Strongjaw, Critical Role (Dedoink... get it?)
• Anri - god of Deception and Trickery, at odds with his twin brother Dolos, called The Prankster.
• Dolos - god of Deception and Trickery, at odds with his twin brother Anri, called The Liar.
• Kawi - god of Dreams, Knowledge and Secrets, believes knowledge should be gained with hard work and experience. Secrets are treasures waiting to be revealed.
• Vimpe - god of Nightmares and Pain. Takes the form of a firey black Nightmare (horse). Named after my friend's horse Wimpie who threw her off.

So not much of a long post, but just thought I'd pop in an update here.

DM-babble: Creating the world with maps

Starting location map zoomed in. (Inkarnate)

These past couple of weeks I've been working, on-again off-again, on maps for my homebrew. Why maps? Because I'm hoping it's going to supply me with answers to the story as opposed to creating a map to fit the story I've pre-written. A bit arse about face, but I console myself with the knowledge that I will be using these maps and thus it isn't time wasted.

So what I've been doing is randomly generating maps on Medieval Fantasy City Generator and Village Generator, then going to Inkarnate and reworking them either to fit my 'vision' better or just to make it look prettier. I'm also by no means a map maker. I didn't take geography at school and have no notion of how things should be on a map. But I don't think it came out all that bad. And hell, it's a fantasy land with dragons and whatnot. Sense is not something it needs to absolutely make.

Here are some examples of what I've been up to:

The city of Alsheim doesn't have a governmental structure yet, but I know that it has a river that flows through it. Yay! With the help of mapping, I've gotten some ideas on the wards of the city, if not the actual contents.

Alsheim (Inkarnate)

But! Before my victims... I mean the party... reaches Alsheim (if they decide to go to the city at all), they have a starter village to investigate called Cara's Pasture. This village was randomly generated with the Village Generator and then I decided that it needed the river to flow past the village and lead down into another bigger town of Spelar. I nabbed some concepts for Cara's Pasture from The Lost Mines of Phandelver as the frontier town of Phandalin had a range of handy dandy shops and places that I wanted to see in this village. Plus in terms of location, the two settlements have similar resources at their disposal (or so I tell myself).

Cara's Pasture (Inkarnate)

I do have the village inhabited by a couple of plain characters and one or two more colourful ones. I have the beginnings of tension in the authorities at play, which I think there should be for it to seem a bit more real. And, I have a couple of quests (though not nearly enough) to start the players off. Hopefully the events will transpire the way I want them to and not have the players killing off my innocent little monsters before they can do what I would like them to do. I probably need more quests and thoughts on this, but so far the whole thing is a little daunting.

Spelar is one of the two places that the party may decide to go to on their way to the city of Alsheim. Much like the city, I basically only have the map for it. No NPCs or quests yet.

Spelar (Inkarnate)

Despite this, I still feel like I've been doing quite a bit. My mind has been working in the background thinking of ways to use and populate these spaces that I've created. So I wouldn't consider any of this a distraction though it does sometimes feel like it. I think I'm avoiding the 'big work' of bringing these places to life. I fear that, like my limitations with geography, my knowledge of political/governing systems is going to put a spanner in the works. But I guess that also depends on the type of players I get. Those who are interested in stabby-stabby would not care for who rules in the random port town that they are passing through where as the more role-playing party just might. It's difficult to tell.

Tell me what you think? 

DM-ing babble: My first homebrew setting... oh dear.

I've been playing D&D for close to seven years and DM-ed for maybe three years(?), but they've been pre-written campaigns or one-shots (usually crappy ones with little decent motivations in them). Homebrew in any form has always been a bit of a mountain I haven't dared climb. Well, sort of. I did try a homebrew setting once. It didn't work out well. It was an email campaign... which is mostly why it failed because time zones suck.

Anyhoo, I admire those who do have homebrew settings because I struggle with proper motivations for characters and getting a story that pops. I have similar challenges with writing stories, so it doesn't quite surprise me that this would be a hurdle I face in the TTRPG sphere. 

But... I've found a story... Uhm, no. Let's call it an fledgling idea. So I've found a fledgling idea that I like. I have victims to try it on. And I have ample enough time to plan the crap out of it. 

This is already sufficient motivation to try it out.

And then, the key ingredient, I have committed myself publicly to try. Guilting me into action is always key. Sadly. Damn.

Future post will probably include more detail as I figure it out and ramble about it. 

What I can say now is that I have a starting world map thanks to Inkarnate, Roll20, and Mythic Portal Games' Cartographers Guild tokens. I have both a city and a town that's slowly taking shape, and I have maps for them thanks to Medieval Fantasy City Generator by watabou.

So the resources are in place. Now to populate the world and make it interesting. That's the next challenge.

I don't know how much I will share of the world here. Perhaps a bit, depending on interest. Perhaps only vaguely in case the only interested parties are my players. Tricksy players.

So here's my question for those game masters out there. How would you start off a level 1 party? How does one work towards levelling them up and making those experiences meaningful without it just being a goblin slog? That seems to be something that's done to death. 

Nanowrimo 2017

One more day...

Let's hope I manage to pull together more words daily than I will in this post.

Nanowrimo 2015

Let's start with me, because I am awesome and this blog is all about me, really. Well, no, but I am the poor sod writing this so it is thus a good place to start, no?

I can't say, in all honesty, that the past two years have been the most unpleasant in my life, but the experiences therein have included some tough times - the lightest of which was the double burglary of my residence within five days... The f- ahem, annoying gentlemen broke in once as a scouting mission and then ransacked the place the second time.

I will add that there were some saving graces in the experience.

1. They waited for me to go to work. These two incidents both occurred during daytime - the last during soft rain - so they really didn't want to face whoever lived in the house. I was safe.
2.They did not in any way, shape or form harm my animals. The horror stories one hears, and the fact that my animals are like my children, makes this a wonderful thing.
3. I managed to recover financially quite quickly based on the particular timing (got a bonus, got my tax money back, yay me). So yes I lost a LOT, but I did manage to fill up what I had lost initially by what I would not have usually received. One can argue that there was a LOT more that now could have been done with said funds - to which I would agree, considering some of the things coming up this year.
4. I learnt that bravery is most certainly not the absence of fear. There is something truly frightening about walking through the house with a grass hockey stick on your shoulder, searching the house for the cause of a noise you heard... And both amusing and satisfying to know that you not only imagined it, but conducted yourself in a controlled manner rather than running away screaming like a girl. Not that I wasn't terrified out of my mind, but it was a rather unique experience (Hopefully unique. I don't want to deal with that again, as light as it was).
5. The item I own that is of the most monetary value is my bed. They didn't steal that. So I can sleep comfortably still. Yay!

So yes. Miserable two years, but it's okay. I have made it thus far. And I'm here. And I'm writing. Sorta. Not fast enough in the opinion of some. But I am here. And hyper because I'm still awake after midnight. And this has been quite a tangent...

ANYHOO!

This year will be my tenth year participating. Thus far, I have succeeded at my goal five times. On top of the minimum goal I should achieve, I'm hoping to put out a blog post once every two weeks as well. No guarantees, but that's what I'm hoping for. They will not be about nanowrimo (though I might slide a little of that in here) and I won't be counting it as part of the word goal (though I am sure I will be tempted to), but it is something I need to focus on. The blog. Not nano. Oh, also, I don't know what happened to the missing pictures on some of the previous posts. I will try to fix it later. Maybe.

What is NaNoWriMo?
National Novel Writing Month is an (international) initiative to get people to start off writing whatever they please in the shape of a story for the month of November. It's all quantity of words over quality of output.

How does it work?

The original idea was that, on the first of November, you start writing on a brand new story. You write as much as possible with the goal of hitting at least a minimum of 50 000 words by the end of the month. It sounds a massive amount of words, but it isn't actually as much as you would initially think. There are some variations and 'rebellions' to the standard expected task. For example, some people would rather continue a story they're already working on, using November to churn out more material. Some student have used Nanowrimo to charge through writing their dissertations and theses. (Probably feces at the end of it that can be cleaned up into something much better).

Here are some points of clarity:

This is a race, but not a true competition. Your goal is to get 50 000 words and you are certainly going to type as fast as you can. You can interact with people in your own area or around the world and instill a competitive edge to the exercise by 'racing' each other to get the highest word count within a particular time. But, in the end, you are a winner by reaching 50 000. And you get a pat on the head for achieving it.

No one will see what you write. It isn't a matter of other people reading what you write or that you are required to share. I think most people will be too busy writing, that they would not really be all that interested in reading your work when they are writing their own. This is a race for words. Plain and simple. From the 25th you will be asked to paste your writing into a word count text box to 'validate' your 50k. This program counts but doesn't copy the text. However, should you be paranoid about it - or if you are writing by hand and can't actually copy those words over (and yes some people do write by hand... and typewriters... because well, why not? -  you can use a text generator site such as Blind Text Generator to generate the necessary amount of words. (UPDATE: A reader has given me another link worth trying out Website Planet Loren Ipsum Generator. It's apparently user friendly and ad free.) But wait, doesn't this mean you will be able to cheat? Well...

...Yes, you will have the ability to cheat. There are no safeguards against cheating. You are given a textbox from the beginning of the months in which to type in your word count and you can increase that number as much as you want, should you choose to do so. But really, what is the point? If you want to be an idiot about it, no one will stop you. There are enough 'veterans' participating who would be able to sniff it out, but they can do nothing but express displeasure at you. Most of them will simply ignore you as the insignificant fly you are. This is your race against yourself primarily. If you want to con yourself then... well, that's your own psychological issue.

You do not have to talk to people. If you want to play the lone ranger, you absolutely can. As said before, this is your race.

You do not have to undergo this exercise on your own. NaNoWriMo presents you with an opportunity to meet people. You can do so with the anonymity of a screen name, or your actual name (that's up to you). The people who communicate on the forums come from all walks of life. And marriages HAVE occurred because of meeting people here - I've witnessed two. You also do not have to worry about getting married, I am sure us single wolves have sufficient internet pepper spray to veer it off. Hey, I've managed for ten years. So why not?

It's meant to be fun. This is your opportunity to murder whatever language you so choose by writing a random story that can make no sense. If you want to write about a duck who crossed the road, then grew fur and shifted into a wolf who died, and became an undead human zombie who has an issue with rotting teeth and a hunger for vegans, you go right ahead and write it.  No grammar required. No nothing. BS to your heart's content. You do have some serious writing folk, but you can enjoy the buffoonery on behalf of them. If you are the serious writing type, just make sure you're having a blast.

There might be no prize, but damn do you feel like a million bucks. You have achieved something at the end. You have written a story the length of some classic novels such as Animal Farm. You have spent a month allowing yourself to do something creative and in the end you've come up with a product - regardless of what utter shite it is. And let me tell you, it is often such shite that it's not worth printing it on paper and using it for toilet paper. But it's real and you made it happen.

Okay, there might be one or two prizes... sorta. What winning does allow you is to get discount on certain writing software. Which can be rather cool. But the ultimate prize is a pdf that you can scribble your own name on, frame it and hang it on your wall... or stick it to your CV... Nah, I wouldn't recommend the latter...

In the ten, non-consecutive, years that I've been taking part in nanowrimo, I have met some amazing people, and less than amazing people. I've had awesome discussions about interests that I have. Interests that I struggle to find like-minded people for in the city that I live. That sounds very dodgy... I mean like being a geek and playing games and such. Really, all innocent past times. And no, I doth not protest too much. I have also had years in which I didn't participate in the forums at all. Granted, I ended up losing motivation and without a group cheering me on, I didn't finish nano. But maybe you are better at it than I am. It's been a lovely mechanism to connect to people and broaden my horizons - and I'm not a social creature at heart, so that says something.

My enjoyment of nanowrimo exceeds any other major occasion, event or holiday. Given the time of year, it is actually insanity with work (in my country the end of the year, really is the end of the year and all the paperwork and reports that go along with it), but when committed, I find a great deal of enjoyment from this exercise.

Despite my natural ability to talk twak, I don't consider myself a "writer". Or maybe I should say I don't see myself becoming an "author". I don't care about publishing, I don't care about publicity or whatnot. I like messing around with fanfiction and that's always a large journey for me (because writing is actually hard when you're just mucking about), but that's still okay. I am not ambitious. I just like being able to play in my own mental playground and realise that I'm not the only lunatic in the asylum.

I invite you to join. The doors are wide open and the straitjackets can be found by going in by the first door on your right.

+/-1800 words. More than one needs for a daily avereage... Just saying.

Stepping in for a brief moment

Reader, let me tell you. The world is a dangerous place. One day you're still thinking of all the things you should be posting about and then some devil rears it's head and says "You have to earn for a living, puny human! Mwahaha." and then you have to work like a crazy person.

I've had a few escapes this year, but they were brief moments where I could breathe and go "ooohhh, I can use the keyboard of my laptop for things other than work..." But usually by that time, my brain is so fried that all sense of comprehension flies out the window and I end up staring dumbly at the computer screen with, maybe, a little bit of drool dripping off my chin.

Then I drag my carcass to the xbox and play games that I don't have to think in all that much. Like Brink. I'm probably the only person who likes it even if its AI drives me insane. Or Far Cry 3 - South African villain, ftw! Ahem. Well, not really. We don't like villains. Refer to the 'some devil' reference above. But at least the accent is there... Or I stay at my laptop and play Evil Genius and lose hours upon hours. Or Seven Kingdoms - same thing. Or Harvest Moon - I have that wench's heart going pink but I'm more worried about my crop than feeding her rice cakes the whole friggin time!

 Ahem... now where was I? Ah yes, the moments of clarity that turns into gooey brains and pointless gaming. But is gaming really pointless, do I ask you? Especially when games ask questions about life, or asks us specifically how far is too far gone to return? Is it pointless when you know you want the good ending, but for things to make sense, it just really can't? What a conundrum!

 Brain dead living also sometimes means staring blankly at a screen that is showing moving pictures with people talking and not acting like the fourth wall exists. Through this means I've seen Khan be seriously creepy and the actor playing Kirk (a character I loathe) giving such an amazing performance that I was ready to cry with him (I shall neither confirm nor deny whether I actually succumbed to this notion). And Spock being awesome... And I saw Superman cause a ton of collateral damage and the people of the Daily Planet just having the worst luck with falling concrete and an amazing-looking Clark Kent. No muscle padding needed in the blue suit, no sir. He reminds me terribly of Christopher Reeve...

And what else... hm. Agends of Shield. Walking dead. A little bit of Downton Abbey. Game of Thrones - Rains of Castamere pops into my head the MOMENT I thought of the title. Uhm.

So I have been keeping my mind topped up even if I haven't emptied it on anything bloggish.

But I felt that now, two days away from NaNoWriMo - yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of the year again - I should show my face. To remind people that this notion of writing like a crazy person for a month - come hell or high water - exists to give one the opportunity to feel like you've emptied yourself, wrote something that might be utter garbage in the end, but hell now you can't say "one day I would like to write a story". You sat down and you sunk your teeth into it.

So as a recap, what is NaNoWriMo?

Well, first it stands for National Novel Writing Month. Only now it's an international thing where over two-hundred thousand (it has hit over three-hundred thousand at least once) people all over the world, from all walks of life, make the commitment to start writing a story, starting on the 1st of November and hitting fifty-thousand words at the end of the month. The stories written - on paper, laptop, phone, typewriter, whatever - aren't open to the public to read. Your story is your story and you're the only one who has you're story. Only when you're writing with a 50 000 word count, some might not be inclined to write you're but rather 'you are' seeing as that makes two words instead of one.

But back to the point. It's (it is) your story and it doesn't (does not) get taken from you because listing your number of words on the site is all about your own honesty. So that golden piece of writing can be anything you want it to be and can become anything you want it to be. There are quite a few books that have been published by authors who used nanowrimo as a place to write their first draft. It's helped people write dissertations, non-fiction, fanfiction and stuff hardly worthy of using as toilet paper. The point is that you're writing. You're actually writing. And fifty-thousand words? That's three pages a day. One-thousand six hundred and sixty-six words a day. You'd be surprised how surprisingly easy it can be to chuck out that many words.

You'll notice that we're talking about words. Not content. Quantity. Not quality. The reason for this is we don't want there to be any evil editors standing in the way telling you your writing is shite. Frankly, it's SUPPOSED to be. One thing people don't always understand is that the good story you might read somewhere didn't start the way it ended up. The words that it took to get to that final published strips of tree were infinitely more than what the ink on the page suggests. It is the proverbial block of marble from which a statue is chiseled. No marble; no statue. No copious amounts of writing, no book.

That's what nanowrimo provides its participants: the place to write up a storm of words that make up the proverbial marble. What you make of that is later's worry. Here you can write your space opera, your self-insert into Lord of the Rings where you tell Gandalf that flying is much faster than walking, your crime novel full of the type of gore that would make others cringe, or your romance novel with scenes that would make EL James blush. It's the opportunity just to have silly fun with a group of people who're probably just as high on life (but more likely caffeine and sugar) as you are.

This is my eighth time participating in nanowrimo. I did not "win" every year. I've gotten stuck at ten thousand the one year and that was after I had managed to make the target the year before. But it's not about winning or losing even. Sure a person can make it about that, but mostly it's about being creative and changing a 'one day' into a 'right now'.

Novembers are usually terrible on me. In my part of the world, nearing the end of the year isn't a 'halfway' mark. It really is the end of the year. And that means all the tons of things you were trying to finish throughout the year actually has to get finished immediately. And oddly, ever single deadline manages to find its way to November. It is in that month where I come in early and leave late, where I sit and buckle. Where the test isn't to see whether I manage to get everything done, but how long it'll be until I crawl underneath my desk with my box of tissues. November is NOT the month of creativity.

But I take part in Nanowrimo anyway. Because under that desk, I have my little world where characters are fighting my battles for me or drawing my frustration from me or commenting on the fact that I am probably insane given the fact that the conversations that go through my mind tend to be between people who don't exist. It is in nano where I give my characters names of people I can't throttle and then have things happen to them. Like a falling piano or a travelling shovel or a disease that makes them a zombie which then obviously justifies decapitation.

I'm actually a pacifist. All bunnies and things. Really. Ahem.

At the end of November, I look at my work and feel that the rat race has been a rat race. I have run myself to death just to end up at EXACTLY the same place. My pages have simply moved from right to left on my desk and somehow that makes the world happy for a month before January starts the race again.

But also at the end of November, I look at nanowrimo and find that I actually achieved something. I've written something and learnt things. I communicated with fellow participants from different places - local and international - and we went through something together. There's something. Not just a race. Next year my story won't be the same. I will feel different in many ways and the only similarity will be my excitement for trying this crazy thing that makes no sense but, at the same time, makes all the sense in the world.

That's what NaNoWriMo gives me. It might give you something completely different.

If you are a blogger, a fiction writer, a person keeping a journal or someone random who suddenly stopped and felt writing a few lines would be kind of neat: I would really and truly recommend giving this a shot. It doesn't cost you anything, but it can give you a lot. It can give you a little confidence in your writing because you learn to build a rhythm. You find a pace that works for you, a time of day, a particular setting. You begin to discover how you think and how to put those words across. You begin to unlock something in yourself that you might be quite used to unlocking or have rarely dared.

And then finally. Remember how I said that nano basically requires you to write one thousand six hundred and sixty-six words? Well, here I present to you a word count of approximately 1690.

Simple as that.